by A D Davies
Bridget said, “What?”
Charlie switched direction, strode up to Sally, and snatched her glasses.
Sally said, “Hey.”
Charlie inspected the frame, specifically a little metallic dot on the temple stem near the hinge. “You started an odd habit when you arrived here. It looked like a nervous tic, but…” Charlie showed Prihya, who squinted at it, and realization dawned in her face, as it had Charlie. She passed them to Toby. “It’s a microwave transmitter. You activate it with the heat of your fingers. Holding it there while cleaning the lens sends your location to your friends.”
Toby held up the glasses, a disbelieving frown narrowing his eyes behind his own spectacles. “They were already here, though. They knew about this place.”
Charlie faced Sally. “That’s true. But that isn’t the purpose, is it? This scans the area, giving them a layout, doesn’t it? And I’m guessing the more heat you apply, or a series of vibrations in a particular pattern, that’s their target. They know exactly where they need to be.”
Sally was standing straight, arms to her side. “Why on earth would I do that?”
Toby lowered the glasses and stared at her. “Because if your friendly contact from New Zealand won’t help you prove your theories correct, then you’ll have to rely on the North Koreans to do it.”
“Oh my,” Bridget said. “It was you who alerted them in California. You let them track you to the cave in Alabama, and that phone call you made to the museum…”
Sally slapped her sides, sighing partly in relief, partly in exasperation. “Okay, Sherlock Holmes, you got me. Fine. Yes. I have a microwave transmitter in my glasses. But look at it from my point of view. I’ve always worked with them, to a degree, so it’d be silly not to continue.”
“I knew it,” Prihya said. “I knew I knew you from somewhere. Not your face or voice, but the description Valerio gave. He said one of his peers was part of the same journey we were on, but they had to rely on some crazy American woman. I didn’t think it could be you if Toby vouched for you. How did you evade the intelligence services?”
“Ah, that’s a doozy.” Sally appeared amused, peppering her words with the occasional laugh, as if embarrassed at a home video blooper. “Executive Ryom’s technology also conceals privacy, including mine. I’d accepted their funding in different parts of the world, but I hoped to get free of them by hanging out with Tane for a while. But, you know, it turned out he was part of the same conspiracy. Tane pretended to be my friend, while he was really helping the establishment covering things up.”
The skin on Toby’s face seemed to slacken. He’d appeared affectionate toward the woman, but Charlie doubted it’d be anything romantic given Toby’s blanket reluctance to pursue that area of his life. Yet, it must have been hard. He’d defended Prihya with decreasing firmness, and now this had turned him 180 degrees.
He said, “You betrayed us all.”
Sally nodded sadly. Then, suddenly, she ran for the weapons locker and snatched a pistol. She heaved it up, pointing it at Charlie, then waved it back and forth. “I know how to use this.”
“Use it?” Charlie said. “You can barely hold it.”
Sally’s grim expression firmed up for about two seconds, before sliding into a simpering, almost pained scowl. “I know. It’s so heavy, isn’t it?”
Charlie stepped forward.
Sally skittered farther back. “I’ll shoot.”
“You won’t.” She rushed at Sally.
The professor pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. No click, no bang, nothing.
Charlie slapped it from her hands and caught it with ease. “You think they keep these loaded? The slide isn’t even engaged.”
“Oh… bother.” Sally sat floppily on the stair leading to the internal door. “Fine, I surrender, whatever.”
That she showed no awareness of what she’d done must have stung Toby hard. He marched as far as Charlie and could manage one blustering word: “Why?”
Sally rolled her eyes, as if he was stupid for even asking. “Because I was right. I knew I was right. They cornered me by releasing that material, so I had nowhere else to go. I had to cooperate with them. It wasn’t like you people were going to help me expose the big lie.”
“That’s what this is all about?” Bridget said. “All this death, all the death that’s gonna come…? To prove you were right?”
Sally stared at her for a long beat, then blinked and nodded. “Well, yes. You can sympathize, can’t you, dear? Of these crazy cover-up people, you want the truth. Don’t you? That’s all you’ve ever wanted.”
Bridget inhaled, about to reply, but bit back whatever she was going to say.
“What do we do with her?” Prihya asked.
“Panic room,” Charlie said. “Phil, you there?” She listened for a second, but with no reply she figured they’d killed the comms again. She was almost glad. “I’ll hang out here with the armory. Shoot anything that comes through that door. I’ll join you if I can’t hold them.”
“Not by yourself,” Bridget said.
About to argue quite firmly, Charlie staggered as the floor shook. A concussive blast roared up from below, shaking the fittings and flickering the lights.
Bridget held herself up on the control desk. “What the hell was that?”
“They’re here,” Prihya said. “They blew the external hatches.”
Charlie ran toward the door leading down to the observation lab. “You have external hatches?”
“We release animals in here, bring supplies. You can’t have helicopters zipping in and out three times a week.”
Charlie saw the logic. “We have to stop them.”
Sally heaved herself to her feet. “Oh, stop being such drama queens. It’ll be fine. They’re all quite sweet guys, really.”
Charlie said, “Bring her along. Keep an eye on her.”
She pulled open the door and headed down to the deck. She had to see the damage for herself. However this turned out, the tranquil life the giants had led to date was shattered forever.
Chapter Thirty-One
In the control room overlooking the rainforest floor, two guards were rearming themselves, prepping to delve back into the fray. Charlie could only watch as ten men in black tactical gear streamed through the breach into the forest level, the blown loading dock door having scattered the inhabitants with loud, fear-drenched hoots and screams. The team pushed on, half of them wielding carbines, the others armed with cattle prod-like probes and one with a hefty rifle that had to be a tranq gun.
Tane and his people had acted as consummate professionals to date, and their ability to insert a man into an American university, summon the resources they witnessed in Alabama, and whisk them halfway around the world at a moment’s notice testified to that. So how had an entire military unit snuck up on a government laboratory-come-wildlife reserve without detection?
The obvious answer was that there was more than one insider. Either that, or Toby’s theory was correct: they’d somehow used one of the Guardians’ shields to cloak their presence and sneak up to the perimeter. The rest of the attack up top was a diversion for the main strike team setting the charges.
“It’s not working!” Prihya cried, slapping the red button for the emergency knockout gas.
“They disabled the entire system,” Toby said. He and Bridget operated other panels, ones they’d only observed others using, but it was clear nothing worked as it should. “I suggest we hole up in the panic room and wait for reinforcements.”
Below, two masked men broke off from the primary group pursuing the family, pushing through the thick foliage, aiming for the monitoring station’s access hatch.
“Can you cut them off?” Charlie asked the two guards, both reaffirming their grasps on their weapons. “We’ll secure the prisoner and—”
“I’m not a prisoner,” Sally said in the most reasonable tone in the world. “I have to finish what I started. Thanks for understanding.”
> Bridget marched over and socked her in the face—a full-on right hook that splayed Sally’s hair and sent her tumbling.
The guards paused to see if more fighting would crop up here. When it didn’t, the one who appeared to be senior wished the group luck, made for the access door, and disappeared down the staircase.
“Well, I…” But Sally was lost for words.
“You’re a prisoner,” Bridget said.
Prihya laughed. “Beat me to it there.”
Charlie checked on the duo’s progress coming this way, then urged everyone toward the metal staircase heading up to the security station. “I’m sorry, Prihya. You understand why—”
“No time for apologies.” Prihya manhandled Sally to her feet and shoved her the way Charlie was headed. “Let’s regroup.”
“Indeed, ladies.” Toby extended an arm, indicating they should follow Charlie’s lead—a cop directing traffic. “Let’s move to the back room, and barricade ourselves in, and—”
Gunfire cut him off. Charlie was already wondering if she should say something later about his condescending “ladies” remark, but then a howl added to the racket.
“That’s Nan.” Prihya halted on the stairs and pushed past Bridget and Sally, running right up to the observation glass. “I can’t see her.”
Charlie sighed and hurried to join her, calling back, “Go, get upstairs. Activate the panic room.”
“What about you?”
Charlie surveyed the scene below. The gaps left by the attendants were empty, so it was all happening under the canopy.
“They don’t have any fear of humans,” Prihya said. “We feed them, and we medicate them. The only time we do anything invasive, we knock them out, so they don’t know it’s us. Now…”
The woman looked forlorn, a child who’d lost their favorite pet. More gunfire directly below snapped her out of it. Both she and Charlie tried to see underneath.
Had she sent those two men to their deaths?
Ah Dae-Sung slinked behind a tree, evading gunfire from the doorway up to the control room. He had memorized the schematics and also had a backup GPS, accurate to ten feet, on his wrist. The two men guarding the entrance would have to die, of course, but he was juggling more than one set of balls.
“Do you have the asset?”
“We have it cornered,” was the reply from Pang Pyong-Ho.
Dae-Sung left the security personnel to the private he’d commandeered to accompany him on this side-mission. He did not want to commit to leaving the fray without first knowing they had achieved their main goal. Using a riflescope, he peered to the area Pyong-Ho had pursued the beasts and snagged on movement. Yes, they’d cornered the big one. The alpha.
Gilim.
From the moment they’d entered, the creatures standing almost ten feet tall had scattered at the explosions. The nano camera and microphone embedded in Professor Garcia’s glasses had sent the images and sound via low-frequency microwave bursts and also mapped the complex for their raid. Thanks to this Ah Dae-Sung and his team knew everything Garcia had learned, but she still had more knowledge than the sum of the Executive’s men combined. She would be another asset if they could extract her. Others, too, those who had manned this magnificent feat of technology.
From down here, the sky was blue, open to the elements, but their satellites had filmed only a dead volcano. It was a watered-down version of what they would unleash in Korea. Putting technicians to work who’d had experience of a similar machine would be advantageous.
But not essential.
They had hoped to snare one of the giants as soon as they breached, but the lumbering brutes Garcia had filmed turned out to be nimbler on their feet when spooked. The female and its offspring went on ahead while the male slowed, then drew the squad away.
It was remarkable, almost sentient, behavior.
Yet, no matter how they might have looked like bigger-than-usual humans, Ah Dae-Sung reminded himself to think of them as cattle. As beasts groomed for the service of humans. This was no more murderous than farming. He was ready to pitch in and abandon the retrieval of personnel if he had to.
“Secured,” Pyong-Ho said. “We have it.”
“Good.” Dae-Sung unclipped a grenade from his belt. “Complete the mission. I will retrieve our other package.”
Prihya Sibal had led a life of instinct, which resulted in many regrets. One such regret was trusting Valerio Conchin over the Lost Origins Recovery Institute, having at one time assumed them greedy grave robbers rather than—like her—purveyors of the truth. After seeing through Valerio’s schemes and his quest for power, she’d fled, ending up in the employ of Colin Waterston, before receiving the offer to sequester herself here. Off the grid and doing some good in the world she’d searched for all her life.
She had just watched all that unravel. It had taken less than three minutes.
Three minutes to blast their way in. To chase those graceful, magnificent creatures into the heart of their habitat. And, eventually, she’d watched as they cornered Gilim in a clearing.
He fought the cattle prods, the electricity crackling and sparking, the blue lightning visible from the observation deck marking it as a powerful charge. But he couldn’t hold them off forever. At least he’d kept them away from his children and wife. Technically, she was his mate, Prihya supposed, but they showed such tenderness toward each other, it was like watching an old, happily married couple. The scientists here threw some good-natured mockery her way whenever she slipped and used the term in their presence.
It had been so nice.
They had done such a lot of good.
Her fresh start, leaving behind her mistakes, was underway.
Now, poor, gentle Gilim had been shocked numerous times, bringing him to one knee. He barged aside the nearest invader who’d ventured too close with the tranquilizer gun, but the others had not been so foolish. He slapped the darts as they embedded in his skin, but he couldn’t fight the drugs as they entered his system. What must have been skin-absorbent chemicals took several seconds to render him unconscious.
“Got ‘em,” Charlie said, returning from the security level. “Can you use one of these?”
The Welshwoman presented Prihya with a Glock 17, the standard issue sidearm for the New Zealand police and other law enforcement. She’d run up there after Toby herded everyone else to the panic room, determined to hang on to their freedom and lives. Charlie wanted Prihya to follow, but she’d refused.
This was Prihya’s life. Even if she couldn’t save them all, she had to try something.
“I can shoot,” Prihya said, accepting the gun and checking the breech for a round.
Then an explosion thundered beneath—a sharp crack and rumble all in one. Smoke billowed from the door down which the guards had disappeared to hold off anyone trying to get up here.
“We’re out of time.” Charlie steadied herself.
Prihya dragged a chair to the door leading down and jammed it under the handle. “We have a few minutes. What now?”
“Is there another way into the rainforest?”
Prihya wasn’t sure why Charlie asked the question. “You’ll risk that?”
“If they want Gilim, it’s not for anything good. If we let them get out, there’s no stopping them.”
Prihya hit more buttons on the panel, seeking one—any single knob or lever at all—that worked. Nothing did.
“The glass?” Charlie said.
“It’s designed to stop a rampaging giant with three times the brute strength of a silverback gorilla.” She indicated her Glock. “This won’t touch it.”
“Then—”
Gunfire shredded the barricaded door.
The two women retreated into the shelter of the chamber Bridget had activated, the recess enough for both. Charlie crouched low, aiming, while Prihya did the same whilst standing.
Under a second hail of bullets, the chair splintered, and the handle blew off. The door crashed open.
&nbs
p; “Hold,” Charlie said.
Prihya waited. It was true that she could shoot, but she was no marksman. Plus, wooden targets and tin cans didn’t fight back.
Two men glided out of the smoking doorway, clad in black, with full face masks that filtered out the particulate from the explosion below.
Prihya guessed the guards were dead but couldn’t think too much about that right now. They had one chance, and the clock was ticking fast.
“Now.” Charlie fired.
Prihya fired.
The two men staggered backwards.
Prihya and Charlie rushed out of the chamber. Charlie fired twice more, one in each chest, center mass, and Prihya again shot the one who was struggling the most.
“Deep breath,” Charlie said, leading her into the stairwell.
Prihya inhaled and, ignoring the two bodies, delved in through the door, hoping they weren’t too late.
Bridget had almost boiled over with fury. That bitch Garcia was lucky to get away with a single punch. Heck, if it hadn’t hurt her wrist, Bridget couldn’t swear she wouldn’t have hit her again.
Now, trying to figure out how to lock the panic room door, she was tempted to take her frustration out on the woman who had led the bad guys here. But it was just the three of them, unable to close the magnetized locks on a featureless, gray area with only a monitor and an internal comms unit.
“It’s all part of the plan,” Sally said, sitting cross-legged on the floor. “I know, I know, it looks bad. But try to see it from my point of view.”
“Your point of view?” The tone Toby used dripped with the same anger as Bridget felt. “You led a hostile enemy to take over this commune. A place man has meddled with nature and tried to make amends for it. To give these gentle creatures a home, to… to…” Spittle dotted Toby’s lips as he tried to get his words out.
“To do the right thing,” Bridget finished for him. “All this mysterious tech, and all the people here—security services, military, even politicians—they just want to do what’s best. Which is to keep it from becoming a weapon. And you’ve handed it to them.”
